The Chicago Teachers’ Union sent a delegation to Venezuela. They came back blaming the U.S. for the failed socialist state’s problems.

The largest teachers union in Chicago sent a delegation to Caracas, Venezuela to “learn what they could from Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution, exchange views on effective education and to show solidarity with the students, teachers and social movements of Venezuela,” according to Fabiana Casas, an English teacher who traveled to the socialist state.

Casas, writing in the Marxist publication Fight Back! News, catalogued the group’s trip, praising the socialist system that native Venezuelans are fleeing from.

Meeting with bureaucrats from Nicholas Maduro’s socialist regime, the delegation was “schooled” in the history of the Bolivar Revolution.

“Through major economic hardships, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro never closed a single public school or a single health clinic,” stated CTU Area Vice President Sarah Chambers. “This stands in stark contrast to our experience in Chicago, where Mayor Rahm Emanuel closed 50 public schools and several mental health clinics in a single year.”

This statement, however, is in stark contrast with news reports of Venezuela’s schools being empty and that, since September 2018, 7000 educational staff have resigned.

Casas’ story also contradicts this AlJazzera report stating that “starving schoolchildren, striking teachers and decrepit buildings are contributing to the breakdown of Venezuela’s educational system.”

“Unfortunately, all is not rosy in Venezuela,” Casas admits. “The mainstream news is right that there are some issues in Venezuela, and the people we have interviewed are in agreement, but where they are wrong is who has created those issues.”

Who is to blame?

“U.S. and European sanctions against Venezuela have caused thousands of deaths,” according to Casas.

The CTU-sponsored trip has created some backlash in Chicago though.

The trip “has some of the rank-and-file union members who stayed behind calling for the ouster of CTU President Jesse Sharkey, himself a card-carrying socialist,” reports the Chicago City Wire.

“Sharkey claims the teachers went ‘on vacation as individuals,’” the source wrote in an email. “This is patently untrue, as they raised money in our union’s name, blogged in our name, met with Maduro’s government [Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro] in CTU’s name, and spoke with media in our name.”

“They are Maduro’s useful idiots,” the source added. “Many members are talking of either leaving the union or recalling Jesse Sharkey. This amidst contract negotiations. They have no one but themselves to blame.”

Unfortunately for the rank-and-file members upset with their union for sponsoring the Venezuela trip, there’s little they can do about it.

Their union is run by socialists (at a minimum) and hard-core Marxists.

"I want to urge devotion to the fundamentals of human liberty – the principles of voluntarism. No lasting gain has ever come from compulsion. If we seek to force, we but tear apart that which, united, is invincible. . . . I want to say to you, men and women of the American labor movement, do not reject the cornerstone upon which labor’s structure has been built – but base your all upon voluntary principles…” -- Samuel Gompers, Founder, American Federation of Labor
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